With all the hustling at the start of the race I managed to pull myself into a good position (3rd wheel) at the start of the climb without feeling close to reaching the red line. Even the climb up the trunk trail felt great but it all came undone on the descent when a piece of bunting had been moved and a few of us up the front took the wrong track! With a lot of swearing and an extra couple of hundred metres riding we pulled ourselves back onto the rear of the main bunch of riders- my position 3rd to about 24th! I was not happy and don’t think I managed to smile till the end of the race. My race plan had been to shadow Johnny Blanket’s moves (knowing he had been winning the previous national enduro’s) and hope that I had enough to out ride him at the end of the race! Unfortunately now I was 20 something places behind him and stuck in traffic while he was leading the race!
I rode consistently with my laptimes varying by not much more than a minute for the 3 hours which brought me to within 10 seconds of Johnny Blanket by the finish line! After getting off the bike I was happy with my result of 2nd having been more than 6 minutes down and bringing it back to just 10 seconds! I was feeling good with the ride.
